Our Founder
Photo: Scott Ball/San Antonio Report
David Monroe was the Founding Chair and CEO of SAMSAT, the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology.
David was born with a love for science, engineering and technology. He related stories to friends, passed on from his Mom, about how she relied on him to fix things around the house from a very young age. The book The Boy Electrician was among his most valued possessions in his collection. His Mom took the picture below, which we believe was a science fair project of a young David Monroe in his tweens.
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He spent one year in the computer science program at the University of Kansas. As David told the story, the Chair of the Math Department (there were no CS departments then) denied David’s request to enter the computer science program as a freshman. Later that year, the same professor thought a student in a meeting looked familiar. That student had built an electronic data capture and graphing tool that enabled a $2 million National Science Foundation grant. David reminded the professor– “I’m the student you turned down.” That evening, David had dinner with Dr. Schweppe and his wife. About three years ago, on Dr. Schweppe’s passing, he left his lifelong computer science library to David and SAMSAT.
That summer, through Dr. Schweppe’s recommendation, David arrived in San Antonio for an internship interview at Computer Terminal Corporation, soon to be known as Datapoint Corporation. He arrived by plane, having earned his pilot’s license before his driver’s license. David would become a very young Vice President in Datapoint’s engineering team, influencing the instruction set of the microprocessor that Intel would eventually turn into the 8080, 80x86, Pentium, and i3/5/7/9 processors. Datapoint grew to 13,000 employees as David contributed to innovations including local area networks, laser printing, and early wireless communications (his wireless network connected the Datapoint buildings).
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It was in this time frame that David began his museum collection. He spent well over forty years collecting museum quality artifacts. Among his collection have been an Enigma machine, Edison Menlo Park light bulbs, early Edison dynamos and electrical components, a GE lighting collection, an 1851 telegraph machine, an Edison phonograph machine, a deep collection of early telephones and telephony equipment, and so much more. He also accumulated what we believe to be one of the deepest computer history libraries in the world.
After Datapoint, David became a serial entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of Image Data Corporation, the founder of Phototelesis, and the founder of e-Watch Corporation. David’s 53 patents were earned during this period of his life. At Image Data, he helped create the first image transmission product over phone lines, contributing to the first hospital-to-home teleradiology product. At Phototelesis, he patented the first use of a camera in a cell phone. You can see this phone in SAMSAT AREA 21®.
During this period, he also served on the Board of St. PJ’s Children’s Home, supported a children’s museum in Houston, and served on the Board of SASTEMIC, a San Antonio STEM non-profit. These experiences led to his final chapter, as the founder of SAMSAT, the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology. Building on his collection, and his unbridled ability to build technology and programs that inspire people, David stood up the SAMSAT History Center at Port San Antonio, and then in 2022, SAMSAT AREA 21® at the Boeing Center at Tech Port. Through the end of his life, he relentlessly pursued his vision of what a science and technology museum should be. Thanks to David, San Antonio has such a museum that will inspire students, families, and the general public for generations to come.
